


Burn The Heretic (339.M41)

by Sister of Silence (Orcbait)



Series: Aegis of Atonement [2]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Betrayal, F/M, Manipulation, Partner Betrayal, Scheming, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-04 05:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orcbait/pseuds/Sister%20of%20Silence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inquisitor Genevieve Von Saar finds herself on a regicide board she cannot oversee and with lethal consequences, for on the cosmic board one cannot 'pass': to every action, a reaction. Unwittingly she brings peril to the doorstep of the one person that could help her, yet if a close acquaintance said that person is a radical, then whom do you believe?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 'Burn The Heretic' is set in the earlier half of Inquisitor Genevieve Von Saar her career, when trouble was only just arriving on her doorstep.

The chamber’s caliginous atmosphere was filled with unfriendly shadows.

It was a moody, wood-panelled place of uninterrupted brown; its partitioned walls lost in the gloom of the vaulted ceiling above, its high, narrow windows barred and shuttered tight. The air was old and stale, heavy with the scent of crumbled parchment and dust. The tall, overbearing walls were lined with steep, tiered galleries of straight-backed folding seats whose misericords were engraved with a haloed, thrice-pierced capital ‘I’. The narrow galleries crowded around the small, semi-circular stage like a throng of nosey spectators, in a fashion not dissimilar to the tribunes of an exclusive little theatricala. The hypogeal chamber might have been the lecture room of Medicae anatomica ungrads, if only it had been located at a Universitariate. And it was not.

  


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A bell tolled in the distance, its muffled peal resounding down the stairwell from the Thorian sacristy above. It was like an echo from a different time, marking hours of which he had long since lost count. The only source of light in the tiny auditorium was a weak, sputtering electroscone mounted on a pole beside the oaken chair he was seated upon, in the centre of the small stage. The only sound was the pacing of his tormentor, who prowled the darkness just beyond the pitiful ring of light like a great carpan stalking its hapless prey. And hapless he was, for he was locked into his seat with sturdy manacles. The dull clunks of his tormentor’s ceramite boots upon the wood boarding circled around him like the footsteps of doom.

“When did you first consort with the radical?” his tormentor inquired, his figure distorted by the flickering shadows as he passed by. He was tall, and broad in the shoulders.

“I do not consort with radicals,” he replied defiantly, blinking against the electroscone’s indecisive light. Its sputtering made it impossible for his eyes to adjust to the darkness beyond. Although he knew very well who it was that questioned him, he preferred the man where he could see him.

“You have known him for a long time,” his tormentor stated. That was true, but then he had never denied consorting with _him_ , just with a _radical_. “What is your relationship to the heretic?”

“I have no current relation to him. I have neither seen, nor written, nor spoken to him in many years.”

There was a glint of polished brass as his tormentor halted abruptly, and rounded on him like a carpan ready to pounce upon its prey. He had heard the heavy footsteps for so long that their sudden absence was frightening.

“Liar!” his tormentor roared. The accusation rent the ominous silence apart. “You served the same master.” There was no use denying it, it was on record.

“That we did.”

“Thus, you know him.” Again, there was no use denying it: it was a logical extrapolation of the facts.

“That I do.”

“So you admit you consort with the radical?” The trap closed around him. He had never been particularly good at this verbal fencing.

“If you have all the answers, then why bother asking me?” he countered, defensively.

The faintest hiss of pneumatics sounded through the eerie silence, and a flicker of light glinted off the pearly surface of teeth. “Old Hapshant was your master, was he not? Crazy as a mud vendor, in the end,” he taunted. “Brain slugs, was it?” He paused. “Did the old man fail to teach you two where the line lays?”

“I am not a radical!”

The carpan leapt: his tormentor strode into the circle of light. He was tall, and his broad figure was encased in brass artificer power armour that gleamed all but golden, even in the pitiful electroscone’s quaking light. It was covered in elaborate scrollwork, etched onto the brass coated ceramite plates and filled with white gold to illuminate the intricate designs. Many purity seals, both old and faded as well as new and pristine, hung from his pauldrons and cuirass like triumph banners. A master-crafted power hammer, symbol of his office and favoured weapon both, hung at his waist beside an ornate bolt pistol.

His face was flat and brutal, and dominated by the augmetic replacing his lower jaw, his straight hair a dull, sword metal grey. He loomed over the shackled man as he brought his face so close that their noses almost touched.

“I do not suffer liars gladly, Endor,” he said softly, and as he spoke, he unhooked a tubular device from his belt, and put it down on the plinth between them, to which his captive’s wrists had been shackled. For all its appearance it could have been a scroll case, but he knew better. This was not so innocent an object. It was an excruciator, the Imperial Army Knife of the Inquisition. He would know: he possessed one too. A morbid sense of curiosity gripped him as he wondered what implements this one held. Excruciators were highly customisable, and many Inquisitors adapted them to their preferred style of interrogation.

“How do I find him?”

“I do not know.”

A dark scowl appeared on his tormentor’s face, made that much more fearsome as it was distorted by scar-marred features and abraded chrome. He grasped his captive’s hands and roughly turned them onto their backs, forcing the soft inside of his forearms upward. As he did so, he picked up the excruciator with his free hand and activated one of its modules. The device came to life with a soft hum and retracted its end, allowing thin, segmented cables over a foot long to uncoil from it.

“How do I find him?” he asked again, and he slowly raised the excruciator.

A neuro-whip. He should have known. He took a deep breath and clenched his fists. “I do not know.” The cables bit into his forearms and their electro-charge scattered a thousand minuscule forks of blue lightning across his skin, setting his nerves aflame with a sharp, crackling pain.

“How do I find him?”

He braced himself. “I do not know.” He clenched his teeth at his tormentor’s derisive snort and the electro-charges shot through his arms twice in rapid succession. They left an ache in their wake that drowned his mind and made coherent thought near impossible. He could feel the heat of his strained skin throbbing like a second heart beat.

“How do I find him?”

“I do not knnnghh!” He grunted through his clenched teeth as he was struck again. “Basta-nnhhh!” His tormentor knew his trade well; he did not strike the charged cables across the same spot twice. Instead he struck them side by side, with precision and a casual, practised ease.

“I can keep this up across your legs and back too, if I must.”

“Go to the Warp! Gnnhh!” The pain no longer subsided into a dull throb, his nerves too frayed now to recover from the discharge shocks in the short time span between the strikes. He gritted his teeth. He’d had worse. His tormentor seemed to realise this too, as he suddenly stopped and deactivated the neuro-whip. The cables lazily coiled back into the handle.

“You are made of tougher fibre than I had thought, I’ll give you that,” his tormentor commented as he observed his handiwork. He reached for one of his captive’s forearms, covered now in bruises from the cables and blistering welts from the discharges, and grasped it. The man squirmed under the touch, the hold painful against the tormented skin. The gauntlet dwarfed the naked limb, the fingertips easily meeting the thumb as it closed around it. “How… do I find… _him_?”

“I do nnoo-gaaaaahh!” His words broke as the ceramite shod fist clenched around his forearm with all the augmented, inhuman strength it afforded. His shrill scream bounded up the tonal ladder and shattered into shrieks of agony that echoed around the darkened room as his ulna and then radius splintered under the pressure. Blood welled up from between the ceramite encased fingers, staining the gleaming brass a ruddy, wet copper.

“How. Do. I. Find. Him?!” his tormentor roared as he lost his patience and leaned his considerable weight onto the mangled limb. The piercing howl would have curdled the blood of lesser men. “How?!” he demanded again, unperturbed by the horrific agony he exacted.

“I donn-ghah!” The backhand struck him with enough force to fracture his jaw and shatter his nose. Pain flared in great waves across his face, down his spine and into every corner of his nervous system as blood streamed down from his ruined nose.

“Yes you do, you worthless degenerate!” his tormentor hissed, only barely capable of bridling his fury. “I know you went to see him, you spoke with him – where is he now? How do I find him?”

“I… d-do…n’t….khhaa-ow.” He croaked and gasped in pain. His vision swam and his sight drew momentarily white.

His tormentor glared at him for a long moment. And then he picked up the excruciator once again. “Charvak II, does that sound familiar to you?” he inquired, suddenly calm as he idly toyed with the collapsed tube.

“Y-yes,” he croaked. He had… conducted an investigation there. Years ago. Illegal shipping of Xeno technology. A tricky business. That was on file too. He tried to collect his thoughts. His vision swam again.

“A nasty little affair,” his tormentor remarked. “Recently an inquiry has been sent to your master, Lord Inquisitor Rorken, concerning your… involvement… in the disappearance of several case artefacts.”

“H-how do-ahh y-you khnnnow ttthat…” he struggled. The Ordo’s High Officio communiques were sealed, even from the likes of his tormentor. It was difficult to speak, to focus his thoughts. The pain, it was… so all consuming. It flared with the smallest movements.

A malicious smirk slowly teased onto his tormentor’s torn features as he glanced up at him and thumbed the activator of a different module. “I sent it.”

“I-imp-poss-ahh…” He winced at the pain the talking caused, and then flinched at the pain the wince caused. He felt as if he would soon die, and yet he knew it was long from over. He would not be allowed to pass into the blissful oblivion of death; he knew the man well enough for that. Not until he had his answers. How had he found out? He had been most discreet. Most careful. Few knew. One knew. “H-hhngh…h-hh-im?”

His tormentor’s smirk broadened markedly. “A very forthcoming man, that rogue trader – VanCleef, wasn’t it? Did you know his real name is Rodrigue D'Ancona?” he replied as the excruciator unsheathed a rigid length of blackened iron with the mallet-crested ‘I’ and ‘M’ of his tormentor’s Ordo embossed on its flattened end. “He told me all about your little swindle, and for a ridiculously cheap fee,” he added as he adjusted the tuning of the excruciator and the end of the iron took on a dull, reddish sheen. “All he wanted was his life.”

The rogue trader, of course. He knew it had been a mistake. A fatal one.

His tormentor roughly grabbed his chin, knifing crippling pain through his shattered jaw and into the very core of his skull. He almost blacked out. Almost. He could feel the heat of the iron’s proximity. “This will be nothing compared to the flames of the pyre waiting for you, Endor,” he hissed. “If but a whiff of your xeno dealings get out.”

“I aaghk-ahhh!” He shrieked as the iron seared into the sensitive skin of his neck, the hiss of his flesh as it boiled and dissolved gruesomely loud in the silent chamber. The sickening, cloyingly sweet smell of burned meat choked the stale air within moments.

“I would make certain your punishment would be applied with skill – by one of our brothers within the Ordo Hereticus,” his tormentor assured him as he lifted the iron away. “Inquisitor Kramer. He penned the treatise on it; he would know how to guide the flames along their proper path: from your calves and thighs to your waist and chest, to finally reach your face and burn the last of your vile, radical lies from your lips.”

“I didn’t laiiaaghh!” A spasm pulled through his body as the iron bit into the crook of his collar bone, drawing waves of recursive pain from his other wounds. The mark kept burning, even when the iron was removed again.

“There will be no smoke to bring the Sleeping Death to you,” his tormenter continued unperturbed as he waited for the excruciator to recover its heat. “It will take time before shock and heatstroke take you. Hours, maybe…”

“I caannnggghhh explnnahh!”

His tormentor was not interested in an explanation. “I could recall the missive, forget about all this…,” he suggested in measured tones. “ _If_ you tell me how to find him.”

“Oh merciful go-aahhhd-Emperor, please I cannghh!”

“Pity.” He shook his head as if he cared at all. “The pyre it is. I thought you were smarter than this, Endor.” He turned off the iron and collapsed it back into the excruciator as he turned to leave.

“I nngghh! Wait-ijaaahh!”

His tormentor paused, and he smiled to himself. Then he turned, strode back and leaned over the broken form of his captive, bringing their faces close once more. “How do I find… _Eisenhorn_?”

“Nnnghhh he’s on… C-Cadiahh!” He struggled. “Gghh-nah… uh-nn-der name… Ei-eissin-ghh!”


	2. Chapter 2

The cool shower had been incredibly refreshing after the day's sweltering heat. I superficially towelled my blonde hair dry and brushed the worst of the tangles out of it. I briefly inspected my reflection in the wall-covering mirror, and the small cut behind my left cheekbone. It appeared to be healing well; with some luck it would not leave a scar. I picked up a small faïence bottle with fragrant oil – lilly flower extract, all the way from distant Prandium. I handled it carefully, for the increased gravity here made the already fragile bottle brittle under its own weight. I sprinkled several drops onto my fingers, and massaged the fragrance onto my neck, the underside of my jaw and across my collar bones.

My hand lingered for a moment there, as I observed the mark burned into my skin. It always remained a fraction lighter, no matter how many sun baths I took. I carefully picked up the fragile bottle once more, wet my fingers on it and traced the scar lines that made up the sprawling Aquila across my skin. That done, I stoppered the precious thing and wrapped one of the soft, pre-heated towels from the dry-rack around me. I tucked it securely under my left arm, the cloth heavier here than it ought to be. Combing through my still damp hair with my fingers, I drew it across my shoulder as I left the bathroom and padded down the hall and past the kitchen into the living room, which were separated from each other by a bar counter.

The apartment was not particularly large but it was supplied of all comforts and the thick, plaster walls kept the sweltering heat where it belonged: outside. The cosmati floor was ashen upon off-white and as intricate in design as it had been expensive. Safe for one, the walls and ceiling had been left off-white, which made the living room seem more spacious than it was. Against the single black wall stood a pillar shrine of dark-veined Veridian marble; the eagle-winged crest of the Holy Inquisition wrought upon it in abraded brass. On the plinth below the shrine laid two master-crafted power hammers, a hand-and-a-half and a two-handed one, the thrice-pierced 'I' of the Holy Inquisition embossed upon their striking faces. Draped across the shorter of the two laid a small, mallet-crested rendering of the sigil of the Holy Inquisition, fashioned in ebony and silver, and suspended from a thin silver chain. I briefly folded an Aquila before I took my rosette from the plinth and hung it around my neck. The motion caused droplets to fall from me sooner than they would have under normal gravitation and, despite my care, splattered loudly apart on the marble.

I padded swiftly across the cosmati, which was cold under my bare feet, and onto the soft, striped carpan hide that covered most of the living room floor. A low, glass recaf table with a motif of tumbling eagles etched along its edges stood to one side, a deck of ancient liquid-crystal wafers upon it. The recaf table stood in front of a couch whose pale woodwork and beige leather upholstery complemented the rare brown hide upon the floor. Across from them was a small, brickwork fire place in which fragrant pine logs lay. The brass implements hanging beside it were unused. A large skull, with sabre-teeth the size of my forearm, hung mounted above the fireplace and the clean impression of a thrice-pierced ‘I’ in its frontal bone betrayed how it had met its end. It was the skull of the carpan whose majestic hide lay upon the floor. The trophies were a quiet testament to a hunting skill and lack of decorative sense that weren't mine.

The glass doors to the terrace stood wide open. I frowned. I was certain I had closed them before taking a shower. The ochre curtains were drawn aside and moved gently on the evening breeze. Everything was quiet.

“Estaban?” I called as I stepped out onto the terrace. The gravel crisped uncomfortably under my bare feet. Evening was falling and light winked off the small quartz crystals spread among the crushed rocks. A decorative, cast-iron bench stood in the corner of the terrace, its arm rest sporting a lonely, drained glass: a stout tumbler with a belly. Estaban favoured them over normal amesac glasses. However, despite the glass, there was no sign of him.

The old garden servitor hovered in the far corner. The little skin it possessed had weathered and tanned to a deep brown, its plasteel components dull and speckled with rust. The tanks it carried upon its back sloshed as it diligently watered the long-leaf yellow carniffs in the planters lining the terrace, quite oblivious to its surroundings. Beyond the low plaster wall that circumvented the terrace, the Kasr stretched out in all directions, dotting the undulating scrub landscape with low plaster homes. The sky above was an angry red, drawing orange towards the west where the sun hung low above the horizon, before giving way across mauve and violet to the sickly pink of the Great Eye in the east.

“Inquisitrix.”

I froze. I knew that voice, and it was not Estaban. In the split second I realised who he was, I saw his angular, blunted features before me. It was like a slice of reality that had misplaced itself, for his visage was not as it should be. His skin was pale and drawn, his stern gaze broken and his jaw and throat a ruined mess of shattered bone, torn cartilage and glistening red muscles. And yet despite the mortal wound he was still alive and dying, his steely eyes wide with shock and staring unseeing as he struggled to expel a final breath. Small crimson bubbles churned up from his exposed larynx as he wheezed, each prismatically ashimmer with the watery rays of a pallid dawn, like a thousand miniature rainbows bathed in blood. I startled so terribly at the horrific sight that I lost the grip on my towel and dropped it.

Movement in my periphery vision caught my attention then: the air had appeared to ripple, as if from heat. I whirled around, snatched the towel from the ground and drew it up in front of me as a man stepped from the shadows cast by the door shutters. Why had I not perceived the presence of his consciousness? The man was broad in the shoulders and well over a head-length taller than I, and sheathed in exquisite brass-coated power armour that shone like polished thronegelt in the evening sun, his long cloak of white fur tinged orange in the dwindling rays. An elaborate, master-crafted power hammer hung suspended from his belt beside an ornate bolt pistol, the unassuming handle of his excruciator and an engraved scroll case. His gold chased rosette, suspended from the embossed besague in front of his left pauldron, winked innocuously as it caught the last rays of light.

In my consternation it took me a moment to realise it was him, alive and well. “Leonid!” I squeaked, then scraped my thoroughly scattered wits together and recovered. “I did not know you were here,” I managed in a more level but still far too thin voice. His upper lip curled away from the polished augmetic replacing his jaw, which lowered a fraction with the faint hiss of pneumatics in what I imagined to be a smile. It revealed a set of immaculate, pearly white teeth. That alone must have cost him a fortune. If I recalled correctly, his face had been thoroughly mauled by an overenthusiastic Khorne berserker.

“That is no happiness to see me,” he remarked dryly, a faintly metallic quality to his deep voice. When he reached for the towel I still clutched in front of me I nearly backed away. “Come,” he urged as he took it and wrapped it properly around me. “There.” The brass of his gauntlets was cold against my skin as he tucked the towel secure. I forcefully suppressed the shiver it caused, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of thinking it might be fear. I could, however, not hide the goose bumps appearing on my flesh. His eyes flicked away from mine only briefly, but I thought I saw a twitch where the tip of his upper lip met chrome.

Now that I had recovered, I could feel the presence of his consciousness as surely as I felt his physical nearness. Every mind had its own distinct identity to me, and I was well enough acquainted with his: crisp and clear like a cool winter’s breeze, carrying upon its invisible wings the threat of a fierce thunderstorm. His mood felt calm and collected, and more than a little amused. I realised that amusement was probably directed at me. I meant to return on his quip then, but in that moment, reality slid out of sync before my eyes once more.

The unmistakable pummel of bolter fire slammed into my mind, followed by the resonating boom of a power hammer’s discharge. I saw wrecked plasteel, splattered with blood and shrouded in thick smoke. A breath-taking backdrop of nebula clouds with wandering asteroids. And two men, fighting for their lives. One of them was Leonid, the brass power armour and glint of chrome told me as much. The other man I did not know. Clad in a dark storm coat his features were lost in the shadows of its high collar. They were evenly matched. The man met Leonid blow by blow, expertly deflecting Leonid’s hammer with his quarter staff. No, _force_ staff. A psyker. Leonid pressed him hard, kept him on his back foot, not giving him the time to focus his mind. For if he did, it would all be over.

It lasted but a fraction of a second and I willed it to go away. Now was not a good time. That I am a psyker is news to none. I have been sanctioned and properly trained; I am in control of my talents. But _this_ … It had started some years ago, and has come and gone ever since. These… images, these _moments_ , which appear to me. I do not know what they mean, or where they come from. The moment left me light-headed. I staggered in its aftermath as my vision drew white and balance momentarily abandoned me. A cold but solid grip steadied me by the shoulders.

“Are you quite well, Genevieve?”

“Y-yes, I am fine.” It did not sound very convincing, even to my own ears. Leonid watched me intently, his eyes flecks of blue steel under his furrowed brow. He was a puritan and an uncompromising Thorian at that; headstrong in his ignorance of the finer tinctures of reality. To him, there was no grey. To him, there was only white and that which needed to be burned from the face of the Imperium. If it weren’t for his resurrectionist inclinations, his unsubtle mind-set would have shod him a Monodominant.

I know that, to an idle observer, we are all alike: an inquisitor is an inquisitor, a harbinger of fear and persecution and as such an Imperial official better avoided at all costs. Few outside our Holy Office know that internally, we are splintered by clashing doctrines. We do not all share the same philosophy on how to exercise our duties or what, for that matter, our duties exactly are. I too am a puritan and, like Leonid, of a Thorian persuasion, and yet even he and I do not see eye to eye on some topics.

Regardless, we – even I – condemn people to the pyre for far less than visions of unknown origins. It is because of this, that when these disjointed moments first started plaguing me, I told no one; _least_ of all Leonid. I have witnessed how he ‘studies’ the uniquely gifted, and I have seen the glee with which he persecutes our own for the sole purpose of foisting his rising star higher up into the firmament. I have wish to be neither on the receiving end of his attention nor to become the means by which he satisfies his unabashed ambitions.

I noticed only then that I was holding his arm. The ceramite was bone cold under my fingertips. “It must be the heat,” I added as I swiftly let go of him and reached for my forehead, sighing convincingly. “I must not have drunk enough water today.”

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “You should be more careful,” he admonished after a moment, and then reached for my hand and took it away from my forehead. He gave it a gentle squeeze as his gaze found mine. “ _Sound_ health is a fragile thing.”

I kept my expression carefully neutral. He always made me feel as if he was on to me; like an obscura-hound circling around an accused, sniffing for the scent it suspected to be there. If his choice of words had been deliberate, I was not about to give anything away. I held his gaze in turn and pursed my lips to show my displeasure at his veiled attempt to intimidate me. That it worked was something he would never know, if I had a say in it.

There was a derisive snort from somewhere behind Leonid. “Undressing my lady in my own apartment, are you Osma?” Estaban remarked as he strode onto the terrace. His long, raven black hair fell in a loose ponytail across his shoulder and his broad frame was shod in a fitting, sleeveless anthracite robe that showed off a v-drop of muscular chest. The small, trice-pierced 'I' tattooed above his heart was crisp and obvious against his pale skin. His ornate, hammer-shaped rosette hung from a braided leather thong around his neck. Estaban had fastened his robe with a length of crimson rope, and from the way it hung slightly off-centre I knew he carried his bolt pistol concealed at his hip. I wondered why that might be. Had they had a falling-out? Not a comforting thought.

“I wouldn’t dare,” Leonid replied wryly. “It is good to see you again, Genevieve,” he added, and it sounded genuine. I played the part expected of me.

“As it is to see you, Leonid,” I returned on as kindly a tone as I could muster and stood up on the tip of my toes to lightly kiss his cheeks in turn, albeit without embracing – and that had nothing to do with the cold power armour. “Forgive me,” I added as I indicated myself. “Your surprise visit caught me unprepared and indecent.”

“There's no need for embarrassment,” he replied as he leaned over me to return the gesture; the ghost of metal past my cheeks enough to raise goose bumps on my skin all over again. “You are as gorgeous today as you are any other,” he added. “The evening's red becomes you.”

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at his rather forward comment but Estaban spoke up before I had a chance to reply. “Geannie, sweetheart.” I glanced over my shoulder at him and saw that he was holding up my dressing gown. I smiled faintly in relief and walked over to where he stood. He held it open to me and I shrugged it on.

“Thank you,” I said softly and reached for his face with both hands, intending a brief kiss. However, when our lips met he caught the side of my jaw and kept us together far longer than was strictly polite with company. His gaze left mine and travelled across my shoulder. I wondered what had transpired. Estaban had always been unflatteringly jealous but this was the first time I saw him act so towards Leonid.

In turn, Leonid observed us quietly, and when his gaze found Estaban’s he crooked an eyebrow ever so slightly. When Estaban finally broke our kiss, he draped an arm around my shoulders and drew me to his side. The press of his concealed bolt pistol against my waist reminded me that I was the only one unarmed.

“What brings you to Cadia, Leonid?” I asked in an attempt to keep the conversation from stranding, unwilling to wait and see if they would go for each other’s throat. “Do come in,” I added in my most hospitable voice. I may not much like the man but he was a puritan colleague and a close acquaintance of Estaban, acting hospitable was the least I could do. That, and he was the right-hand man of Lord Inquisitor Rex Bezier, Lord Malleus of the Ordo Malleus Helican. I had never met Rex Bezier in person, but I had heard enough about the man to not want to be spoken ill of before him; least of all by someone whose opinion he heavily favoured. I quietly suspected that Leonid was next in line for the Ordo Malleus’ High Officio Helican seat. Just like Estaban was for the Angelus seat. For Estaban had, since Raul’s sudden passing some years previous, swiftly become the new favourite of Lord Inquisitor Sarim Ramses, our own superior overlord and Lord Malleus of the Ordo Malleus Angelus. I was certain many of our less... _stalwart_... colleagues would rue the day Estaban and Leonid held sway over half the Ordos Malleus in the Scarus Sector. Myself included, if they ever found out about the sight I had diligently neglected to mention to them for years now. 

As I entered the apartment and beckoned them to follow, I was keenly aware of the ominously larger-than-life shadows the setting sun cast ahead of them, within whose dark contours I saw their future selves as my superior overlords.


	3. Chapter 3

“One of those Amalathians has gone radical,” Leonid replied in answer to my question. “I have reasons to believe he’s here on Cadia.” I glanced at him from across the counter as I walked into the kitchen. That was uncharacteristically forthcoming of him, and it made me immediately suspicious about his motives for visiting us. The Leonid Osma I knew did not make house calls for no reason.

“An Amalathian?” I asked, feigning a passing interest as I opened the cooling unit and retrieved a canister of water from it; to reinforce the truth of my earlier statement, not because I was thirsty. “Who is it?” As I opened the side cupboard and pretended to search for a glass I slipped my hand between the cooling unit’s top and the counter, my fingers closing around the familiar shape of the small needler concealed there. I swiftly dropped it in the pocket of my dressing gown as I produced a glass and proceeded to pour myself some water.

“You do not know him,” Leonid answered and shook his head curtly. “Helican Ordos.” That did not mean anything and he well knew it. We hardly stuck to our Ordo’s official precinct in practise.

“Try me,” I responded as I took a sip from my glass. The corners of his mouth twitched at that but before he could reply, Estaban spoke.

“Osma?” Estaban asked as he produced a bottle from his overstated liquor cabinet. He turned around to show Osma the label. It was a stately clavelin of aged Gundrunian amesac – 201.M41, a good year. Estaban seemed unconcerned about Leonid’s potential motives for visiting us. To my perception his consciousness felt calm and balanced, content even. Cautiously, I reached out to him, lightly brushing his surface thoughts. They were all about the surprise visit of a colleague he counted among his friends; the excellent quality amasec of which he was certain Leonid would appreciate the taste too... and me, traipsing around in a towel that was most definitely a lot smaller in his mind’s eye than it had been in reality.

“Certainly,” Leonid returned. He picked up the tumbler of amesac Estaban poured him and raised it to his lips to savour the rich smell of the old liquor. I shook my head faintly when Estaban looked at me and indicated my glass of water. He nodded and proceeded to pour a glass for himself instead. In that moment, out of the corners of my eyes, I saw Leonid slip something into his glass that bubbled briefly as it dissolved: a neutralising compound, undoubtedly. They _had_ had a falling-out.

“The radical?” I reminded Leonid. Careful as if creeping past a dozing carpan I shifted my perception to him. His mind felt quiet, collected, and possessed still a hint of his earlier amusement.

“Ah, yes,” Leonid replied as he held the tumbler; the stout glassware seeming positively fragile in his brass gauntlet. “Eisenhorn,” he answered at long last and fixed his gaze on mine. I pursed my lips and kept my expression neutral. Clearly, he expected some sort of a reaction from me. The name sounded familiar but I could not quite place it. Eisenhorn… where had I heard that name before?

“Eisenhorn?” Estaban inquired, weighing his glass in his hand. “That’s Ravenor’s old tutor, is he not? Ordo Xenos, I believe.”

The proverbial thronegelt dropped and I realised whence I knew the name. I had read ‘The Mirror of Smoke,’ authored by Gideon Ravenor – an excellent treatise and one I highly recommend to anyone interested in paradigm breaking metaphysics. Ravenor must have mentioned his erstwhile mentor in it.

“The one,” Leonid confirmed with a curt nod.

“What has he been charged with?” I inquired as I took a sip from my water. An Ordo Xenos Amalathian had gone radical… that involved alien technology, no doubt.

“Consorting with Daemons and perpetrating the atrocity at the Spatian Gate,” Leonid surmised on a tone that suggested it was a weather report, not a damning accusation.

“What?!” Estaban and I exclaimed all but at the same time. The disaster during the Holy Novena on Thracian Primaris the previous year had been news across the sector; its devastation had been of impossible proportions: millions had died and trillions of thronegelt in irreplaceable tech had been lost.

“A ruse,” Leonid elaborated. “To gain possession of the Alpha Plus psykers that were part of the entourage of prisoners present in the parade.”

“To possess them? Not to destroy them?” I replied incredulously. That made no sense. What would an Amalathian want with Alpha Plus psykers other than destroying them? Amalathians foolishly wished to maintain the status quo. Alpha Plus psykers were one of the biggest threats to the Imperium as it is, for their psychic capacities were of such galactic proportions that they were not just a threat to themselves and those around them, but to the very planet they walked on, the galactic system they were in. The boundaries between mind and reality were meaningless to them: what they wanted, they had, what they willed, was.

“They have disappeared,” Leonid replied. “And so has he.”

“If he’d meant to destroy them, he would have targeted them in the first place,” Estaban pointed out.

“Indeed,” I mused and took another sip from my water. It truly made no sense. I glanced sideways at Leonid. His cases always made perfect sense; there must be something he wasn’t telling us. I wondered then how Leonid had wound up involved in this, but realised that the Alpha Plus psykers had undoubtedly been given over to the custody of the Holy Inquisition or, to be more precise, the custody of the Ordo Malleus Helican. As Bezier’s right-hand man, they might have been his charge.

“I have obtained a Carta Extremis for Eisenhorn’s arrest from my Lord Bezier,” Leonid revealed as he turned to Estaban. He removed the engraved scroll case from his belt and held it out to him. “I had hoped you might bring it to Lord Ramses’ attention, old friend.” He was silent a brief instant before continuing. “With the support of both our Lords, Lord Rorken will have no choice but to cut the radical loose and sign it, too.”

Estaban weighed the consideration and for a moment I thought he would refuse, but then he nodded and accepted the scroll case. “I shall inform him.”

I glanced up from my glass. A Carta Extremis needed the consent of three Lord Inquisitors to be considered valid, _any_ three. Had Leonid come here merely to secure a second signature? It seemed too obvious, too... easy. It was a simple duty and did not warrant the effort of his social manoeuvring. There must be something else. I tentatively reached out to Leonid and brushed past his surface thoughts as I watched him sip his amasec.

At the fore was his weariness from several days travel and months of hunting after the radical Inquisitor without solid progress. He enjoyed the brief respite this visit posed, although he had reasons to be here other than an amicable reunion with an old friend and ‘his comely girlfriend’. He liked the amasec Estaban had chosen and thought it was a good year too. Behind them lay a lingering consideration of my state of undress and though it was far from unflattering in content, it was a thought I had little wish to know more of, and so I passed it quickly.

Beyond that lay shards of memories: a lean man, youthful despite his age. He was bound and marked by fatigue and the strain of severe physical torture. Titus, his name was Titus. It was not who Leonid sought, though. I saw another man, tall and broad in the shoulders, his short hair slicked back and greying. His figure was lost in the shadows as he halted under the Spatian Gate, seemingly studying a plaque. Was this who Leonid sought? A Valkyrie broke flight formation overhead. It swooped down like a bird of prey, its engines screaming. Beloved God-Emperor, the Thracian atrocity! The man threw himself flat against the ground as the Imperial jet-fighter screamed past and rammed itself into the front of the triumph parade. It exploded into an all-consuming ball of fire that engulfed engines and soldiers alike. The man fled from the cataclysmic scene. Leonid sought him so he would face punishment for his crimes. No. No? There was something else, something darker, that Leonid wanted to find. That he wanted the man to hand over to him. I reached deeper, certain that I was close to uncovering his true motives now.

_That is not very polite, Inquisitrix._

The active thought ripped his mental patterns to shreds. I withdrew immediately, slamming my own mental doors behind me and barricading them for a siege even though I knew Leonid had the psychic capacities of a sea urchin. I had trouble to keep my expression neutral as he studied me from above the rim of his glass. How had he detected me? Could it have been an educated guess? He knew I was a psyker. Had I been staring at him, too absorbed in finding out what I wanted to know? I hoped so. It was infinitely more preferable to the existence of a psychic trigger I had not noticed I had tripped.

Despite his nearness the intensity of Leonid’s mood dwindled. It felt distant and reserved. I could still perceive the state of his consciousness but it was much fainter now than it had been before. Undoubtedly he was trying to conceal it. The moment our gazes crossed I saw a flash of another face, like a veneer across reality. Its pale skin was stretched taut over its skull, blue veins visible at the temples. Its visage was gaunt and leering, grinning bare the teeth of a predator from between thin, bloodless lips. And yet, it were its eyes that disturbed me most. They possessed a blank, milk-white colour and were alight with unearthly cunning and the promise of unspeakable evils. They were like pearls reflecting dark shadows, like pools of white ink that mov--- our gazes met. And it grinned wider still. I immediately tore my gaze away, staring hard at the floor as I tried to calm myself. My head felt light. My heartbeat echoed in my ears, beating far too rapid.

“Geannie?” Estaban. I glanced up, my gaze instinctively dodging past Leonid as I turned to Estaban, even though I knew the evil visage was long gone. It had been a glimpse, nothing more.

“It's all right, I think.” I reached for my glass of water in an attempt to mask the lingering trembling of my hands. I had gazed upon a foul thing and it had gazed back at me, I was sure of it. I took a sip and conjured a weak smile around my lips. “I should have known better than to stay outside during the noon hour.” I wondered idly how long the charade would last me.

“Indeed.” Estaban shook his head in response, his expression more than obvious enough as to what exactly he thought of my supposed faintness.

“An exquisite set,” Leonid remarked. When I glanced in his direction he indicated the stack of liquid-crystal wafers upon the recaf table. “Yours, Genevieve?” He observed me studiously. Evidently, he did not take my words as easily to heart as Estaban did. I had thought he might not; I would have to be more careful from now on. I frowned when the meaning of his words sank in. The cards certainly weren’t Estaban’s; Leonid knew bedamned well the Imperial Tarot could only be laid by a psyker.

He was not the type to kick in open doors and his doing so now put the wary right back in me. For despite having already made his request, and having it answered positively, he was _still_ making conversation, going out of his way to appear amicable. That was not like him at all. I would be remiss if I said he was rude, or even discourteous, but his social graces were the first to go when someone became dispensable to him. His agreeable behaviour could mean only one thing: he wanted something else; something far less formal a request. I wondered what it might be. Leonid did not request assistance lightly, or take declines kindly.

“Yes, they are mine,” I replied, humouring him, and hid my suspicion behind a show of amicable levity. “Shall I read them for you?”

The merest hint of a frown creased his brow at that and his mood withdrew further. Clearly, he had not considered that I might offer him a personal reading. “If it is no inconvenience,” he returned smoothly. An inkling of reluctance seeped into his demeanour.

“Oh, no. Not at all!” I returned heartily as the most genuine smile yet tugged at my features. The Imperial Tarot had been designed by the God-Emperor, millennia ago, and through it His will can be divined. By a psyker, like myself, for only we can reach through to the Immaterium and glean from it the merest fraction of His omniscient wisdom if He deems us worthy to be imparted so. When an ungifted individual uses the Imperial Tarot this vital connection is lost and the cards are rendered meaningless, as insignificant as that benighted tradition of ancient Terra it is reminiscent of. The Imperial Tarot is thus a conduit of truth and to suggest that what they show is anything less than true, is to suggest He could be mistaken – and _that_ is the vilest sort of heresy.

And yet, Leonid eyed me speculatively as I picked up the deck. He was wary. If you asked me, that betrayed a besmirched conscience. It would seem Bezier’s chosen successor was not as immaculate a paragon of puritanical virtues as he made it appear. Why else would he be wary of the truth He may impart, than if it were knowledge he preferred to remain hidden? It made me curious as to what type of concern could possibly fret someone with Leonid’s iron constitution.

“Come,” I added, and beckoned them as I moved to the couch and sat down. Estaban and Leonid complied, picking up their glasses from the counter. Estaban sat down beside me, in the corner to my right, and draped his arm along the back of the couch as he unceremoniously put his feet up on the corner of the recaf table. Leonid sat down on my other side with enough space between us for a fourth person. I took the fragile liquid-crystal wafers out of their psy-proof glass casing and held them out to him. As soon as I had touched them, their pearly surfaces had begun to shimmer and dissolve. “You must hold them in your hands,” I explained when Leonid did not take them from me. “As you know, they are psycho-active and if you hold them they will properly attune to you." His eyes narrowed suspiciously for a brief moment, and I made certain to broaden my smile a fraction further. My erstwhile mentor, Inquisitor Cesare, had always said: ‘The wider you smile, Genevieve, the more innocuous you look. Use it.’

And so, I smiled, and Leonid took off his gauntlets; the pressurised hiss as he removed them from their slotting loud in the quiet evening. I nudged my head in his direction as I held out the deck to him still. He accepted it from me and held it in his bare hands. The cards were clouded, the liquid crystal within them stirred like water and yet, at the same time, it appeared far too insubstantial to be a true liquid. “Now draw five, any five you like, and put them before you on the table in the order you deem fit for them,” I continued my instructions. He did as I asked without comment.

“Splendid! Please Leonid, now turn them around,” I added. “No, no, across their long side!” I amended when I saw him reach for their short end. If he turned them that way, he would invert their orientation. Leonid glanced up at my words. I suppose he expected an explanation, for when I did not offer him one his steely eyes narrowed once more in quiet suspicion. I simply continued to smile as if I had no idea what was wrong. Him, of all people, I was not going to regal with the theoretical minutiae of the Imperial Tarot. He would not understand.

Leonid turned the five cards one by one then, and with a determined purpose that suggested he was trying to will them to reveal nothing. I must admit, I was curious as to what the God-Emperor, beloved by all, might impart to me concerning Leonid Osma. I had never read the cards for him before. The first card would be most telling: it represented the subject of the reading, a mirror to their soul and an indication of their character concerning the issue brought forth by the other cards. I was not disappointed.

As Leonid turned the cards the swirling, pseudo-liquid mists of the first began to clear and an image slowly formed across its pearly surface. It was a faceless man seated upon a stone-hewn throne with bundled staves at his feet. He was resplended in a knight’s fine armour, holding silver scales in hand and a golden sword rested across his lap. A crown of iron circled his proud brow. It was the Lord of Staves, and an autarch that suited Leonid well.

The Lord of Staves was a man strong of heart and mind; calm and rational. He was an echo of ancient nobility and old fashioned respectability; righteous and just to a fault. Stern, but not unkind. Reserved, but not uncaring. A staunch supporter, should your causes align, and an excellent counsellor. Such was his upright orientation. Together with the Lord of Swords it was an autarch that appeared regularly when I read the cards for a colleague. The reverse tuning of the Lord of Staves showed the flip side to this noble, respectable arch-type. For the Lord of Staves became an intolerant, wilful and narrow-minded man, set in his ways and highly combative in their defence. A mistrusting, shrewd schemer with little concern for the needs and well-being of others. A regicide master fixated on maintaining his winning streak. A vengeful and unrelenting enemy.

The primer of the reading, the Lord of Staves, lay upside down before me. I forcefully suppressed the cold shiver that crawled up my spine. I had rather not seen my suspicions concerning the less savoury side of Leonid’s personality confirmed. It would seem I had been wise to keep my sight hidden from him.

Leonid had stopped half way turning the fifth card and I was keenly aware of his gaze on me. I kept my expression one of studious neutrality and made a thoughtful noise. “Interesting.” One of Leonid's eyebrows slowly arched up, I saw it from the corner of my eyes. I switched my gaze to his a heartbeat later, as if I had noticed only then. “Go on,” I urged, smiling encouragingly. Though Leonid continued to turn the remaining card he kept a wary eye on me. He was out of his depths. It was good to know he was not quite as amphibious with the Immaterium as he made it appear. As he turned the last card the three previous ones began to clear, revealing Ten of Aquila upright, the Heretic upright and Nine of Staves reversed. They were followed, shortly after, by another autarch.

It was a man with sharp features lost in the shadows of his hood. Straight-backed he sat upon his black steed, a brandished sword in hand as he galloped across a road paved with Aquila. A two-headed eagle perched upon his shoulders, its talons drawing blood from his flesh. The Knight of Aquila was a man of the moment – quick of wit, quick of hand. He possessed a keen intellect and natural charisma. A conventional, dutiful, pragmatic man. A perceptive thinker. Selfless in his diligent devotion to his craft, he holds himself and others to lofty standards. A lone wolf with a lion's heart. At least, that was his true tuning; his reversed tuning turned him into a cold and uncaring man; one who put his ideals and goals before his own needs and those of others. A stubborn, wilful and ruthless adversary. Obsessive and manipulative. It was an unusual autarch, one I had never seen before in association with a colleague.

What was more curious still was that the Knight of Aquila lay _upright_.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: A lot of time and hard work went into the creation and publication of this story and as such it is very dear to me. I would love to hear what you thought of it. And please, share this story freely but credit me and link back to me. Thank you!


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